Generally, a battle
is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, wherein each group will seek to defeat the others within the scope of a military campaign, and are well defined in duration, area and force commitment. [1]
Wars and military campaigns are guided by strategy, whereas battles take place on a level of planning and execution known as operational mobility. [2] German strategist Carl von Clausewitz stated that "the employment of battles ... to achieve the object of war" [3] was the essence of strategy.
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by William Sadler II
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BATTLES TICKETS
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Etymology
The definition of a battle cannot be arrived at solely through the names of historical battles, many of which are
misnomers. The word
battle
is a
loanword in English from the Old French bataille, first attested in 1297, and is itself a borrowing from Late Latin battualia, meaning "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing," from Latin battuere "beat", from which the English word battery is also derived via Middle English batri.
[4] and comes from the staged battles in the
Colosseum in Rome that may have numbered 10,000 individuals.
Characteristics of battle
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The defining characteristic of the battle as a concept in the
Theory of combat [5] has been a dynamic one through the course of military history, changing with the changes in the organisation, employment and technology of military forces.
While the British
military historian Sir John Keegan suggested an ideal definition of battle as "something which happens between two
armies leading to the moral then physical disintegration of one or the other of them"
[6], the origins and outcomes of battles can rarely be summarized so neatly.
In general a battle during the 20th century was, and continues to be, defined by the combat between opposing forces representing major components of total forces committed to a
military campaign, used to achieve specific
military objectives, within a time-frame of less than a month.
[7] Where the duration of the battle is longer then a week, it is often for reasons of
staff operational planning called an
operation
. Battles can be planned,
encountered, or forced by one force on the other when the latter is unable to
withdraw from combat.
A battle always has as its purpose the reaching of a
mission goal by use of military force.
[8] A victory in the battle is achieved when one of the opposing sides forces the other to abandon its mission, or to
surrender its forces, or
routs the other, i.e., forces it to retreat or renders it militarily ineffective for further
combat operations. However, a battle may end in a
Pyrrhic victory, which ultimately favors the defeated party. If no resolution is reached in a battle, it can result in a
stalemate. A conflict in which one side is unwilling to reach a decision by a direct battle using
conventional military forces often becomes an
insurgency.
Until the 19th century the majority of battles were of short duration, many lasting a part of a day or less. (The
Battle of Nations (1813) and the
Battle of Gettysburg (1863) were exceptional in lasting three days.) This was mainly due to the difficulty of supplying
armies in the field, or conducting
night operations. The means of prolonging a battle was typically by employment of
siege warfare. Improvements in
transportation and the sudden evolving of
trench warfare, with its siege-like nature during
World War I in the 20th century, lengthened the duration of battles to days and weeks.
This created the requirement for
unit rotation to prevent
combat fatigue,
[9] with troops preferably not remaining in a combat area of operations for more than a month. Trench warfare had become largely obsolete by the start of the
Second World War.
The use of the term "battle" in military history has led to its misuse when referring to almost any scale of combat, notably by strategic forces involving hundreds of thousands of troops that may be engaged in either a single battle at one time (
Battle of Leipzig) or multiple operations (
Battle of Kursk). The space a battle occupies depends on the range of the
weapons of the combatants. A "battle" in this broader sense may occupy a large piece of spacetime, as in the case of the
Battle of Britain or the
Battle of the Atlantic. Until the advent of
artillery and
aircraft, battles were fought with the two sides within sight, if not reach, of each other. The depth of the battlefield has also increased in
modern warfare with inclusion of the supporting units in the rear areas; supply, artillery, medical personnel etc. often outnumber the front-line combat troops.
Battles are, on the whole, made up of a multitude of individual combats, skirmishes and small
engagements within the context of which the combatants will usually only experience a small part of the events of the battle's entirety. To the
infantryman, there may be little to distinguish between combat as part of a minor raid or as a major offensive, nor is it likely that he anticipates the future course of the battle; few of the British infantry who went over the top on the
first day on the Somme, July 1, 1916, would have anticipated that they would be fighting the same battle in five months' time. Conversely, some of the Allied infantry who had just dealt a crushing defeat to the French at the
Battle of Waterloo fully expected to have to fight again the next
day.
Battlespace
Battlespace is a unified strategy to integrate and combine
armed forces for the
military theatre of operations, including
air,
information,
land,
sea and
space. It includes the environment, factors and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force, or complete the mission. This includes enemy and friendly
armed forces; facilities; weather; terrain; and the
electromagnetic spectrum within the operational areas and areas of interest.
Factors within battles
Battles are decided by various factors. The number and quality of men and equipment, the
commanders of each army, and the terrain advantages are among the most prominent factors. A unit may charge with high morale but less discipline and still emerge victorious. This tactic was effectively used by the early
French Revolutionary Armies.
Weapons and armor may also play as a decisive factor; however, during the
Wars of Scottish Independence the
Scots emerged victorious over the English despite inferior weaponry. Discipline within the troops is also important; at the
Battle of Alesia, the Romans were greatly outnumbered but won because of superior training. A squad that does not retreat is far more valuable than an army that flees upon sight.
Battles can also be determined by terrain. Capturing high ground, for example, has been the central strategy in innumerable battles. An army that holds the high ground forces the enemy to climb, and thus wear down. Another advantage is it is physically easier to strike a blow from a higher position than from a lower position. Although this does not hold as much in modern warfare, with the advent of aircraft, terrain is still vital for camouflage, especially for
guerrilla warfare.
Generals and commanders also play a decisive role during combat.
Hannibal,
Julius Caesar and
Napoleon Bonaparte were all legendary generals and, consequently, their armies were extremely successful. An army that can trust the commands of their leaders with conviction in its success invariably has a higher morale than an army that doubts its every move. The British in the naval
Battle of Trafalgar, for example, owed its success to the reputation of celebrated admiral
Lord Nelson.
Types of battle
Battles can be fought on land, sea and in the modern age, in the air.
Naval battles have occurred since before the 5th century BC. Air battles have been far less common, due to its late conception, the most prominent being the
Battle of Britain in 1940. However since the
Second World War land or sea battles have come to rely on air support. Indeed, during the
Battle of Midway, five
aircraft carriers were sunk without either fleet coming into direct contact.
There are numerous types of battles:
- A battle of encounter
is a meeting engagement where the opposing sides collide in the field without either having prepared their attack or defence.
- A battle of attrition
aims to inflict losses on an enemy that are less sustainable compared to one's own losses. These need not be greater numerical losses - if one side is much more numerous than the other than pursuing a strategy based on attrition can work even if casualties on both sides are relatively equal. Many battles of the Western Front in the First World War were intentionally (Verdun) or unintentionally (Somme) attrition battles.
- A battle of breakthrough
aims to pierce the enemy's defences, thereby exposing the vulnerable flanks which can be turned.
- A battle of encirclement
—the Kesselschlacht
of the German Blitzkrieg
—surrounds the enemy in a pocket.
- A battle of envelopment
involves an attack on one or both flanks; the classic example being the double-envelopment of the Battle of Cannae.
- A battle of annihilation
is one in which the defeated party is destroyed in the field, such as the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.
Battles do not frequently fit one particular type perfectly and are usually hybrids of different types listed above.
A
decisive battle
is one of particular importance; often by bringing hostilities to an end, such as the
Battle of Hastings or the
Battle of Hattin, or as a turning point in the fortunes of the
belligerents, such as the
Battle of Stalingrad. A decisive battle can have
political as well as military impact, changing the balance of power or boundaries between countries. The concept of the
decisive battle
became popular with the publication in 1851 of
Edward Creasy's
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World
. British
military historians
J.F.C. Fuller (
The Decisive Battles of the Western World
) and
B.H. Liddell Hart (
Decisive Wars of History
), among many others, have written books in the style of Creasy's work.
The differences among land battles throughout history
There is an obvious difference in the way battles have been fought throughout time. Early battles were probably fought between rival hunting bands as disorganized mobs. However, during the
Battle of Megiddo, the first reliably documented battle in the fifteenth century BC, actual discipline was instilled in both armies. However, during the many wars of the
Roman Empire,
barbarians continued using mob tactics.
As the
Age of Enlightenment dawned, armies began to fight in highly disciplined lines. Each would follow the orders from their officers and fight as a single unit instead of individuals. Each army was successively divided into
regiments,
battalions,
companies, and
platoons. These armies would march, line up, and fire in divisions.
Native Americans, on the other hand, did not fight in lines, utilizing instead guerrilla tactics. American colonists and European forces continued using disciplined lines, continuing into the
American Civil War.
A new style, during
World War I, known as
trench warfare, developed nearly half a century later. This also led to
radio for communication between battalions.
Chemical warfare also emerged with the use of poisonous gas during
World War I.
By
World War II, the use of the smaller divisions, platoons and companies, became much more important as precise operations became vital. Instead of the locked trench warfare of World War I, during World War II, a dynamic network of battles developed where small groups encountered other platoons. As a result, elite squads became much more recognized and distinguishable.
Maneuver warfare also developed with an astonishing pace with the advent of the
tank, replacing the archaic cannons of the Enlightenment Age. Artillery has since gradually replaced the use of frontal troops. Modern battles now continue to resemble that of World War II, though prominent innovations have been added. Indirect combat through the use of aircraft and missiles now comprise of a large portion of wars in place of battles, where battles are now mostly reserved for capturing cities .
The difference of naval battles throughout history
One significant difference of modern naval battles as opposed to earlier forms of combat is the use of
marines, which introduced amphibious warfare. Today, a marine is actually an infantry regiment that sometimes fights solely on land and is no longer tied to the navy. A good example of an old naval battle is the
Battle of Salamis.
Most ancient naval battles were fought by fast ships using the
battering ram to sink opposing fleets or steer close enough for boarding in hand-to-hand combat. Troops were often actually used to storm enemy ships as used by
Romans and
pirates. This tactic was usually used by civilizations that could not beat the enemy with ranged weaponry.
Another invention in the late
Middle Ages was the use of
Greek fire by the Byzantines, which was used to set enemy fleets on fire. Empty demolition ships utilized the tactic to crash into opposing ships and set it afire with an explosion. After the invention of cannons, naval warfare became useful as support units for land warfare.
During the 19th century, the development of mines led to a new type of naval warfare. The
ironclad, first used in the
American Civil War, resistant to cannons, soon made the wooden ship obsolete. The invention of military
submarines, during
World War I, brought naval warfare to both above and below the surface. With the development of military aircraft during
World War II, battles were fought in the sky as well as below the ocean.
Aircraft carriers have since become the central unit in naval warfare, acting as a mobile base for lethal aircraft.
Aerial battles throughout history
Although the use of aircraft has for the most part always been used as a supplement to land or naval engagements, since their first major military use in World War I aircraft have increasingly taken on larger roles in warfare. During World War I, the primary use was for reconnaissance, and small-scale bombardment, using ineffectual hand-dropped bombs.
Aircraft began becoming much more prominent in the
Spanish Civil War and especially World War II. Aircraft design began specializing, primarily into two types: bombers, which carried explosive payloads to bomb land targets or ships; and fighter-interceptors, which were used to either intercept incoming aircraft or to escort and protect bombers (engagements between fighter aircraft were known as
dog fights. Some of the more notable aerial battles in this period include the
Battle of Britain and the
Battle of Midway.
Another important use of aircraft came with the development of the
helicopter, which first became heavily used during the Vietnam War, and still continues to be widely used today to transport and augment ground forces.
Today, direct engagements between aircraft are rare - the most modern fighter-interceptors carry much more extensive bombing payloads, and are used to bomb precision land targets, rather than to fight other aircraft. Anti-aircraft batteries are used much more extensively to defend against incoming aircraft than interceptors. Despite this, aircraft today are much more extensively used as the primary tools for both army and navy, as evidenced by the prominent use of helicopters to transport and support troops, the use of aerial bombardment as the "first strike" in many engagements, and the replacement of the battleship with the aircraft carrier as the center of most modern navies.
Battle naming
Battles are almost invariably named after some feature of the battlefield
geography, such as the name of a town, forest or river. Occasionally battles are named after the date on which they took place, such as
The Glorious First of June.
In the
Middle Ages it was considered important to settle on a suitable name for a battle which could be used by the
chroniclers. For example, after
Henry V of England defeated a French army on October 25, 1415, he met with the senior French
herald and they agreed to name the battle after the nearby
castle and so it was called the
Battle of Agincourt.
In other cases, the sides adopted different names for the same battle, such as the
Battle of Gallipoli which is known in Turkey as the
Battle of Çanakkale. Sometimes in desert warfare, there is no nearby town name to use; map coordinates gave the name to the
Battle of 73 Easting in the
First Gulf War.
Some place names have become
synonymous with the battles that took place there, such as the
Passchendaele,
Pearl Harbor,
the Alamo or
Waterloo.
Military operations, many of which result in battle, are given
codenames, which are not necessarily meaningful or indicative of the type or the location of the battle.
Operation Market Garden and
Operation Rolling Thunder are examples of battles known by their military codenames.
When a battleground is the site of more than one battle in the same conflict, the instances are distinguished by
ordinal number, such as the
First and
Second Battles of Bull Run. An extreme case are the twelve
Battles of the Isonzo—
First to
Twelfth—between Italy and
Austria-Hungary during the First World War.
Some battles are named for the convenience of
military historians so that periods of combat can be neatly distinguished from one another. Following the First World War, the British Battles Nomenclature Committee was formed to decide on standard names for all battles and subsidiary actions. To the soldiers who did the fighting, the distinction was usually academic; a soldier fighting at
Beaumont Hamel on November 13, 1916 was probably unaware he was taking part in what the committee would call the "
Battle of the Ancre".
Many combats are too small to merit a name. Terms such as "action", "skirmish", "firefight", "raid" or "offensive patrol" are used to describe small-scale battle-like encounters. These combats often take place within the time and space of a battle and while they may have an objective, they are not necessarily "decisive". Sometimes the soldiers are unable to immediately gauge the significance of the combat; in the aftermath of the
Battle of Waterloo, some British officers were in doubt as to whether the day's events merited the title of "battle" or would be passed off as merely an "action".
The effects of a battle
Battles affect the individuals who take part, as well as the political actors. Personal effects of battle range from mild psychological issues to permanent and crippling injuries. Many battle-survivors have nightmares about the conditions they encountered, or abnormal reactions to certain sights or sounds. Some suffer
flashbacks. Physical effects of battle can include scars, amputations, lesions, loss of bodily functions, blindness, paralysis — and death.
Battles also affect
politics. A decisive battle can cause the losing side to surrender, while a
Pyrrhic Victory such as the
Battle of Isandlwana can cause the winning side to reconsider its long-term goals. Battles in
civil wars have often decided the fate of
monarchs or political factions. Famous examples include the
War of the Roses, as well as the
Jacobite Uprisings. Battles also affect the commitment of one side or the other to the continuance of a war, for example the
Battle of Incheon and the
Battle of Hue during the
Tet Offensive.
See also
- List of battles
- Military tactics
- Military strategy
- Naval battle
- Pitched battle
- Skirmish
- Warfare
References
- p.65, Dupuy
- p.10, Glantz
- translation of part quote from p.77, Clausewitz
- p.33, Tucker
- pp.63-64, Dupuy
- p.302, Keegan
- pp.65-71, Dupuy
- p.67, Dupuy
- pp.62-63, Richardson